by Fran Baker
“Kai!” Anne gasped his name again and again as the volcano erupted. Grasping her hips, he too cried out in the fulfilling heat of the moment.
He moved to free her of his weight, his lips roving in lazy circles on the soft, sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder. Anne stroked his sable hair as their rapid breathing slowed to a steady tempo.
The lovers lay side by side, the evening breeze stirring nothing more than their whispered endearments. They slept with their arms around one another, their bodies touching wherever possible. Anne awakened first. She placed a light kiss on Kai's brow, then rose, snuggled into his soft robe and walked to the window. The setting sun was a flaming ball above the dark waters of the harbor. Leaning on the windowsill, she felt the growing breeze lift her flowing hair away from her face.
“At this moment I wish I were a painter instead of a musician.” Kai was propped on his elbow, his midnight-black eyes watching her, his fine-planed nudity a work of art itself. She cast a self-conscious smile over her shoulder as he came to stand beside her. Red fire sank into the sea and a feeling of peace flooded Anne’s being as Kai laid his cheek against her golden hair.
Chapter 4
Kai's attention was focused on the dangerous curves of the winding mountain roads, his strong hands in total command of the leather-covered steering wheel. From the corner of her eye Anne studied his intriguing, masculine profile, wondering how she could face the tedium of routine after the seductive cycle of their weekend alone. Time had simply disappeared as she had succumbed over and over again to the sensual persuasion of Kai's desire and the supreme joy of absolute fulfillment
“A woman, like water, is slow to come to a boil and slow to cool down afterward,” Kai had murmured as his hands explored her in intimate detail, caressing the silken texture of her skin. “A man, like fire, is quickly ignited and swiftly extinguished.” His mouth had wandered with savoring skill to her sensitive pleasure places, lingering at will until she was spinning in a wild whirlwind of passion.
“Together,” he had whispered with husky assurance as his supple body had moved to possess hers, “fire and water become steam.” Kai drank from the inviting softness of her lips as the waves of bliss washed over her and she clung to him like a drowning woman. “And the steam rises upward into the heavens,” he had coaxed as together they scaled the peaks of ecstasy to new and dazzling erotic heights.
And now, in the moon-bronzed beauty of this night, Anne knew that it was time to return from her leisurely, love-filled vacation to the harsh realities of her working world. She shivered, but it wasn’t the brisk mountain breeze that evoked her physical response.
“Are you warm enough?” Kai’s dark gaze flickered over her briefly as he cut into her private thoughts. “We will soon be back in the suffocating heat of the city and Victoria Peak will be a refreshing memory to cool you through the long, hot week.”
Anne tried to read an expression on the shadowed planes of his face even as she felt the flush of remembrance rising inside her. The nagging doubts that she had tucked away after their first, fateful meeting returned to plague her. Sanity seemed to slip away whenever she stepped into his arms and she needed to regain a rational viewpoint before she became completely lost in his sensual magnetism.
“I'm fine, thank you.” She kept her tone bright even as the betraying tears shimmered in her eyes. This wasn’t how she had planned to utilize her time in Hong Kong, and she wanted to get her life back into its safe, professional perspective.
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Kai glanced at her; she felt the smoldering heat of his look even as she pretended to concentrate on the natural cathedral of the tangled trees arching over the road. “I’ll have to check my calendar,” she hedged, slipping a knife’s edge of distance into her voice.
“There are probably a dozen messages waiting on my desk and I need to see what’s in store at the office before I say yes or no.” It was a slow, calculated retreat from his tempting advances, and it hurt beyond belief. Anne almost flinched with the pain of her own words, words that were tolerable only because they offered some protection from the later, deeper hurt that would destroy her if she let it.
Kai’s Mercedes snaked in and out of the traffic as they approached her waterfront apartment building. Throngs of tourists, their arms loaded with gaily wrapped packages, mingled with busy natives hurrying home for a late dinner break. The stars twinkled in a cloudless sky and the streetlamps cast a deceptive, daytime glow over the bustle of all-night activity in downtown Hong Kong.
“Would you like me to come upstairs with you?”
Kai’s question was smooth as he eyed her implacably. Anne realized in that instant that she had wounded him with her blithe refusal to make a dinner date before she had checked in with the office. She was determined to see this through, though, and she silently commended herself on the poise she managed to muster as she met his gaze.
“It’s late, Kai, and we both have demanding schedules. Why don’t you call me tomorrow and we’ll discuss dinner then?” Her knees felt like rubber as she slipped out of the passenger side and walked into the lobby without a backward glance. Only her tremendous self-control, nurtured with years of practice, kept her from falling apart as she rode the elevator toward her floor.
Anne opened the door to her apartment with shaking hands that didn’t want to cooperate as she flicked on the desk lamp.
“Oh, my God!” The scene would haunt her forever.
Anne trembled violently and her stomach churned in fear and disgust as she stared at the blood-red broad-stroked writing on her living room walls. She stumbled through the piles of paper strewn helter-skelter on the floor and ran toward her bedroom, seeking shelter from the ugly threat.
“Oh, no!” Even before she turned on the light she could see the ransacked mess where her dresser drawers had been yanked open and her clothes flung carelessly every which way.
Anne fought the burning nausea that clawed at her throat. She retraced her steps and dug through a mountain of paper to find the telephone.
“Kai!” She called out in the oppressive silence. “Kai!” She screamed this time, knowing that he couldn’t hear her, but needing the reassurance of his name on her lips. Her fingers shook uncontrollably as she dialed Dick’s number, spilling out the incoherent story of this menace as soon as he had answered. Her boss promised in soothing tones that he would be right over, and Anne waited for him, a numb heap of fear in the eye of somebody’s raging storm of retribution.
“My God, Anne! Do you have any idea of who did this to you?” Dick stood in the middle of the living room, his jaw working in amazement as he read the dripping red lettering that defaced her apartment. “It’s a warning,” he finally said in an angry voice. “They want you to back off the sweatshop exposé.”
Anne stared at him in vacant horror as beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead. A knot of terror coiled inside her, holding her immobile as she tried to absorb the full impact of what had happened. “But—why—” She gagged before she could finish.
“Because they’re running scared!” There was a note of elation in Dick’s statement. He slapped his thigh and Anne was stupefied by the triumphant expression that gleamed in his blue eyes. “You’ve forced those creeps into a corner, Anne. This is a desperate act by desperate people.” He smiled then and Anne felt a terrible bitterness welling inside her. “You hit them where it hurts the most—in the pocketbook. If you finish the serial it will wipe them out.”
“You knew all along that this might happen to me!” Icy rage coated her accusation. “And yet you let me continue working on the editorials!”
“No, honestly, I didn’t have any idea that they would try something like this.” Dick knelt on the floor beside her and laid a consoling hand on her ann. “I figured it would be some kind of verbal warning—you know, a phone call—maybe a letter.” The deep blue sympathy in his eyes reinforced his words. “If I had had any inkling that they might break
into your apartment I would have alerted the police.”
Anne buried her face in her hands, holding herself rigid against the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks. She wouldn’t cry!
“I feel so—violated.” The adrenalin was pumping furiously through her veins. “My clothes—they slashed my clothes. I'll never be able to wear them again.” She shuddered violently.
“Don’t worry about that.” Dick hugged her. “First thing tomorrow, you go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, compliments of UNA, of course.”
“I can’t stay here tonight.” Her eyes pleaded although her voice was steady. “They might come back.” Another, more horrible thought struck her. “What if I’d been here when they broke in?”
“You’re going home with me. It's plenty safe there.” Dick helped her to her feet and they surveyed the mess. “Are you certain that you never got a message of any kind, a phone call, a letter that you might have forgotten about, warning you to back off of this sweatshop thing?”
It hit her then with the force of a physical blow and she sagged against his supporting weight. Kai had warned her—several times in fact. Kai owned a jewelry factory here on Hong Kong Island. Was it possible that he was exploiting his employees, too? And Kai was the only person who had known she would be gone all weekend, although that hadn’t been her intention when she’d left with him yesterday morning. Yesterday? It seemed light years ago!
“Are you all right?” Dick’s concerned voice penetrated her shock-dulled senses. “Here, sit down a minute and try to compose yourself. Have you got a camera loaded and handy anywhere in this mess? And a flash attachment?”
“What?” Anne couldn’t believe he was asking her these ridiculous questions in the middle of this turmoil.
“I want to photograph this. For evidence.” Dick busied himself digging through everything and located her camera. “Good girl.” He beamed at her. “It's loaded and the flash attachment is already on it.”
Anne watched as he snapped picture after picture, too stunned to answer any of the questions that he shot at her. “I’ll pack up whatever I think you’ll need for the night,” he offered from the chaos of her bedroom.
“Do you think we should box up these papers?” He stood over the mess, scratching his head, her smallest valise already packed and standing by the front door. “You might have some notes in here that could prove useful,” he finally decided out loud. He scooped the papers up by the armful and stuffed them into another suitcase.
The full horror was sinking in with vivid clarity as she sat beside him in his speeding car. A beacon of light in the entryway of Dick’s small, rented home said that his wife had waited up for them, but Anne wasn’t comforted. This nightmare would stalk her no matter where she slept and she wasn’t sure that she would even be able to close her eyes for a very long time.
“How lucky that you weren’t there when they broke into your apartment,” Dick’s wife said as she poured strong, hot tea into tiny cups.
Anne slumped at the table in the cozy kitchen, absently stirring her tea and trying to sort through the nagging doubts that assailed her. The initial shock of discovery was wearing off and hot tears streamed down her face, dripping unnoticed into her tea. The idea that Kai might be responsible for something so cruel appalled her; and yet, he was the only person who had known she was gone.
It was her own fault and she accepted the blame with fatalistic calm. She had let her guard down—failed to keep her senses honed. Totally unprofessional. And, she knew with sad certainty, it was a mistake that she couldn’t afford to make again.
“I said, where did you go this weekend?” Dick repeated his question, interrupting the sorry train of her thoughts. “I’ve never known you to just wander away for two days and not let somebody know how to reach you.”
“Sight-seeing,” she mumbled. Anne had no talent for lying and she didn’t want to be put in the position of having to keep her deceptions straight. By the same token, she definitely didn’t want anyone—especially her boss—to know about her romantic escape with the potentially threatening man who had given life to her secret fantasies. “I was visiting a friend on Victoria Peak.” There, that was as close to the truth as she could bring herself to come. She prayed that Dick wouldn’t ask for the name of her “friend.”
“Well, I’ll get in touch with New York first thing tomorrow morning and see how they want to handle this.” Dick was lost in the morass of his own problems, much to Anne’s relief. “We don’t want to involve the police unless we absolutely have to, because they’ll probably insist that we just let the editorials die a natural death.”
Anne jerked her head up in surprise. “Does that mean that you’re going to pursue this?”
Dick nodded in grim affirmation. “We’ve got them now, Anne, and damned if I’ll let go. I intend to squeeze them so tight that they beg for mercy—scream for it—all the way to prison.”
Dick’s wife gasped and her neatly coiffed head swiveled from Anne to her husband and back again. “Surely you’re not serious!” she squealed. “It's too dangerous, honey. Next time they might harm her, and you know as well as I do that you would never forgive yourself if it came to that.”
“I’m pulling her off this assignment,” he assured his worried wife. “We’ll import the big guns, from all four corners of the world if necessary. They’re going to get it with both barrels now.”
“You're not pulling me off!” Anne corrected him with more ferocity than she had dreamed she was capable of after tonight’s exhausting fiasco. His decision to reassign her at the least little sign of trouble was a direct insult to her professional capabilities, and she’d be damned if she’d sit still for it.
Pride dictated the squaring of her shoulders, the defiant fire that flared in her gray eyes, and the sweeping motion with which she smoothed away the golden tendrils that had strayed onto her cheeks and temples.
If Kai was involved, despite her fervent hope to the contrary, she wanted to know up front so that she could begin erasing the memories before they became permanent. And if he wasn’t responsible . . . well, she wanted to be the first to know that, too.
“I started this,” she declared in a firm tone, noticing the peacock proud glance that Dick gave her. “And I’m going to finish it!”
Chapter 5
Monday dawned too soon for Anne after her nightmare-riddled hours in the Tabors’ guest room. Grotesque shadows had haunted her dreams, stalking her through the split-level paradise of the Botanic Garden, then chasing her toward an endless wall splattered with scarlet calligraphy. When she finally woke, Anne rubbed her tired eyes and groped for her watch, shocked to discover that it was after nine.
The whistle of a tea kettle beckoned from the kitchen. Anne slipped into the robe Sally Tabor had loaned her and followed the homey sound.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Anne stifled a yawn as she watched Sally polish the stove. “Our staff meeting is at ten, and now I’ll never make it.”
“Don’t worry.” Sally shook out her cloth, then folded it neatly. “Dick said to let you sleep—until noon if necessary. After all, you’ve earned it.” She set a handleless cup of aromatic Darjeeling tea on the table and pulled out a chair. “Here, sit down and let me fix you some breakfast. When Dick comes home for lunch he’ll fill you in on everything.”
Anne sank into the chair gratefully. Still weary, she knew she wasn’t up to the Monday morning hassle of the office, and she needed some quiet time to collect her thoughts.
Lurking like a civet cat in the chamber of her mind was the fear of Kai’s possible involvement in the attempt to scare her off the refugee series. She was ashamed of the suspicion; but trained as she was to question motive and opportunity, she harbored it.
“Here you are.” Sally set a plate holding a generously buttered English muffin and a slice of melon on the table.
“I really appreciate you and Dick being so thoughtful.” Anne brushed her disheveled blond mane away from her fa
ce. “After living alone so long it feels terrific to be spoiled like this.”
Sally cocked her head and examined Anne’s left hand. “A beautiful young woman like you should have a man to spoil her,” she chided gently. “Pardon my nosiness—Dick swears I’m a born matchmaker—but I can’t understand why you haven’t remarried.”
“Because I learned the hard way that I can’t do justice to a husband and a career.” Despite her self-mocking smile, Anne’s voice held a note of bitterness. “And because I don’t want to forfeit my options for another relationship that might crumble.”
“But a good marriage doesn’t diminish your options; it expands them,” Sally countered. “If it's going to last, a commitment has to be rooted in the earth, like a young sapling. Then you nurture it so it will grow as you grow.”
“And my instincts tell me I’m not ready for that kind of commitment.” A hint of anxiety pinched Anne’s pure features. “Besides, I don’t want to make another mistake.”
“Good heavens! You can’t swear off half the human race simply because you goofed up one time.” Sally’s eyes were wide. “The only people who don’t make mistakes are dead ones.”
“Maybe so.” Anne paused, remembered pain reflected in her eyes. The gnawing void inside her ached for fulfillment, but the thought of repeating her failure scared her silly. “I weathered one divorce and I won't go through that again. My goal is to become a respected reporter—maybe even an editor someday. For now, my career has first priority.”
“When you meet the right man you’ll know what real priorities are.” Sally reached over and patted her hand.
To Anne’s dismay, hot tears suddenly blurred her vision. She wanted to confide in the older woman, to let her confusion spill out like water bursting through a dam. She smothered the impulse and focused on her plate instead, toying idly with the uneaten melon.